Gesher marks 22 years of excellence in new season

Theater moving confidently into its 21st season with roster of challenging productions, new venture.

PRIMA DONNA 370.
(photo credit:Daniel Kaminiski)

Flags flying high, the Gesher Theater is moving confidently into its 21st season
with not only a roster of challenging productions, but a new
venture.

Founding artistic director Yevgeny Arie is establishing a school
for actors and directors, bringing in teachers as needed from Russia and the US.
Enrolment will be limited to ensure that the students can derive maximum benefit
from their studies.

As for the season, actor Shmuel Viloszny has joined
the company and will take the title role in Friedrich Durrenmatt’s Romulus the
Great, here entitled The Last Rooster, which Durrenmatt called “an unhistorical
historical comedy.” It tells the story of how chicken farmer Romulus
Augustus, the last Roman emperor, blandly presided over the loss of the
empire.

Renowned Latvian director Alvis Hernanis will direct Yevgeny
Onegin, based on Pushkin’s great narrative poem. House dramaturge Roi Hen has
created a play for the whole family based on Homer’s Odyssey, chronicling the
20-year journey home of Odysseus after the Trojan War.

Other offerings
include Bernard Malamu’s The Jewbird, all about Jewish soul, The Liar by Juan
Ruiz de Alarcón (1643), a romantic comedy “with a twist” all about the dangers
of lying, a play that was adapted by Carlo Goldoni in Italy and Pierre Corneille
in France, and starting this month, Jeffrey Hatcher’s Stage Beauty, here named
Prima Donna.

The play is based on the life and times of Ned Kynaston,
England’s most celebrated actor of female roles until Charles II turned his life
upside down by repealing the prohibition against female
actresses. Alexander Morpov will direct.

But because the theater
only gets 8.6 percent of its NIS 22.4 million budget from the government,
there will also be a production of The Sound of Music to get the cash registers
tinkling. Composer conductor Gil Shohat will be the musical director.

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